She Sent Me A Text Message
At the ripe and rosy start of June,
She sent me a text message,
Tipped by a slithering tongue:
“We should go for ice cream.”
But I refused it. I didn’t text her back.
I knew in the short nature of her words
That she was in a bad mood.
Still, I slipped into a pair of shorts,
Even though I hadn’t shaved in a day
And hot weather makes me itchy.
I abandoned my air conditioned bedroom
To find her halfway down the block,
Two five dollar bills folded in her palm
And a look of disgust on her face.
She spoke for a mile about the boy,
And when we both got waffle cones of rocky road,
I insisted she let me pay for her.
At the sweltering, sticky peak of July,
She sent me a text message,
Rich in punctuation:
“I’m so done with him. At least, I want to be.
No, that’s a lie. I don’t want to be.
I love him. I know that I love him.
But not all of me is ready to love him,
Not in the way that he wants to love me.”
But I refused it.
I didn’t want to talk about
The way he wasn’t satisfied
With what she had to offer.
He was an idiot. She gave more than enough,
And most of it, he wasn’t even worthy of.
He laughed too much, at his own jokes,
And he reeked of beer and gym sweat,
And I couldn’t give her unbiased advice.
Still, I had to see them sometime,
Down the street, hand-in-hand,
On their way to our ice cream shop
So that he could forget that she likes
Waffle cones of rocky road
And ask her when the hell that happened
As he waits for his bowl of cherry cordial.
He doesn’t look right next to her.
He’s too big, too burly, too shabby,
In torn tank tops and beach-bleached shorts
That clash her flowing dresses
And her button-up butter yellow blouses.
He’s too immersed in himself
To be able to fully appreciate
The one that’s too immersed in him.
At the periwinkle dusk of August
She sent me a text message,
Short in a voice that wasn’t hers,
Penned as a scared little girl:
“It happened.”
But I refused it.
It wasn’t so much
That I wouldn’t let myself believe
That she was just so ruined now.
Defiled, even. Damaged.
I truly didn’t care
That her supposed virtue was taken.
I couldn’t stand the fact that I knew
She truly wasn’t ready to give it up,
And to know that she knew
She couldn’t get it back now.
I couldn’t take that talk.
Still, within two days,
When she asked me over for a movie,
I came over to find her bathed in irony,
Wrapped in nothing but a shower robe,
That still left much to the imagination,
But served as an announcement
That she was a pullstring away.
And that there was now someone in the world
Who didn’t just have to imagine it.
She readies her face and hair,
And tells me how, they’d only gone there once,
And even so, she knew she didn’t like it.
He was too self-absorbed,
And he didn’t care when it hurt her,
And he didn’t care when she wasn’t done.
He seemed to want it for him.
As she ran the blow-dryer,
She called over its roar,
Saying how she couldn’t believe that she’d done it,
And asked me if it would make her stupid
To go to her priest on Sunday
And beg for him to erase the act
In the eyes of the Lord. Re-white the slate.
I told her I could never think she was stupid.
At the first morning of greying September,
She sent me a text message,
In something of a dazed tone:
“I’m lying on your front lawn.
Come outside.”
But I refused it.
I couldn’t join her.
I had been spending months
Building up my immune system
But there was no way
I could trust it enough
To lay beside her in the silent AM dew.
Still, I glanced through the blinds
To verify that she was real,
And she was.
Clad in a cloud sweater
And a white cotton skirt that,
With the modest tilt of her legs
Bunched somewhere up her thighs,
She lounged with a sleeve over her eyes,
Very empty
And very real.
That night, she broke up with the boy.
On October 13th, 2:42 PM,
She sent me a text message:
“I’ve always kind of wondered
What it would be like
With another girl. Is that weird?”
But I refused it,
Not because it was weird,
But because it wasn’t her.
Because I could read between the lines,
And knew that she was telling me something else.
“I know that you love me,”
Was what she meant to say.
“And it excites me,
But I am not equipped to love you back.”
And I knew this. I knew it from the start.
I knew it throughout knowing her.
I didn’t refuse it because I was scared,
Or because I was rejecting her,
Or even because I wasn’t ready
For things to take that turn.
I refused it out of anger
At knowing that she knew
That she couldn’t do it. And it wasn’t her fault.
And I didn’t blame her.
I didn’t blame her for the excitement, either.
Everyone can love affection,
But I expected more from her
Than to try to excite me in return.
I'd always thought that,
In knowing we would always just be like this,
We were always something more.
But the next time that I saw her,
Her eyes were wide and terrified,
And they looked right through me. They always had.
I was just aware of it now.
And she cleared her throat,
And her hands lined her pockets,
And I watched the sidewalk ants
And my fingers knotted with my belt loops
And I knew that we were strangers again.
She sent me a text message,
Tipped by a slithering tongue:
“We should go for ice cream.”
But I refused it. I didn’t text her back.
I knew in the short nature of her words
That she was in a bad mood.
Still, I slipped into a pair of shorts,
Even though I hadn’t shaved in a day
And hot weather makes me itchy.
I abandoned my air conditioned bedroom
To find her halfway down the block,
Two five dollar bills folded in her palm
And a look of disgust on her face.
She spoke for a mile about the boy,
And when we both got waffle cones of rocky road,
I insisted she let me pay for her.
At the sweltering, sticky peak of July,
She sent me a text message,
Rich in punctuation:
“I’m so done with him. At least, I want to be.
No, that’s a lie. I don’t want to be.
I love him. I know that I love him.
But not all of me is ready to love him,
Not in the way that he wants to love me.”
But I refused it.
I didn’t want to talk about
The way he wasn’t satisfied
With what she had to offer.
He was an idiot. She gave more than enough,
And most of it, he wasn’t even worthy of.
He laughed too much, at his own jokes,
And he reeked of beer and gym sweat,
And I couldn’t give her unbiased advice.
Still, I had to see them sometime,
Down the street, hand-in-hand,
On their way to our ice cream shop
So that he could forget that she likes
Waffle cones of rocky road
And ask her when the hell that happened
As he waits for his bowl of cherry cordial.
He doesn’t look right next to her.
He’s too big, too burly, too shabby,
In torn tank tops and beach-bleached shorts
That clash her flowing dresses
And her button-up butter yellow blouses.
He’s too immersed in himself
To be able to fully appreciate
The one that’s too immersed in him.
At the periwinkle dusk of August
She sent me a text message,
Short in a voice that wasn’t hers,
Penned as a scared little girl:
“It happened.”
But I refused it.
It wasn’t so much
That I wouldn’t let myself believe
That she was just so ruined now.
Defiled, even. Damaged.
I truly didn’t care
That her supposed virtue was taken.
I couldn’t stand the fact that I knew
She truly wasn’t ready to give it up,
And to know that she knew
She couldn’t get it back now.
I couldn’t take that talk.
Still, within two days,
When she asked me over for a movie,
I came over to find her bathed in irony,
Wrapped in nothing but a shower robe,
That still left much to the imagination,
But served as an announcement
That she was a pullstring away.
And that there was now someone in the world
Who didn’t just have to imagine it.
She readies her face and hair,
And tells me how, they’d only gone there once,
And even so, she knew she didn’t like it.
He was too self-absorbed,
And he didn’t care when it hurt her,
And he didn’t care when she wasn’t done.
He seemed to want it for him.
As she ran the blow-dryer,
She called over its roar,
Saying how she couldn’t believe that she’d done it,
And asked me if it would make her stupid
To go to her priest on Sunday
And beg for him to erase the act
In the eyes of the Lord. Re-white the slate.
I told her I could never think she was stupid.
At the first morning of greying September,
She sent me a text message,
In something of a dazed tone:
“I’m lying on your front lawn.
Come outside.”
But I refused it.
I couldn’t join her.
I had been spending months
Building up my immune system
But there was no way
I could trust it enough
To lay beside her in the silent AM dew.
Still, I glanced through the blinds
To verify that she was real,
And she was.
Clad in a cloud sweater
And a white cotton skirt that,
With the modest tilt of her legs
Bunched somewhere up her thighs,
She lounged with a sleeve over her eyes,
Very empty
And very real.
That night, she broke up with the boy.
On October 13th, 2:42 PM,
She sent me a text message:
“I’ve always kind of wondered
What it would be like
With another girl. Is that weird?”
But I refused it,
Not because it was weird,
But because it wasn’t her.
Because I could read between the lines,
And knew that she was telling me something else.
“I know that you love me,”
Was what she meant to say.
“And it excites me,
But I am not equipped to love you back.”
And I knew this. I knew it from the start.
I knew it throughout knowing her.
I didn’t refuse it because I was scared,
Or because I was rejecting her,
Or even because I wasn’t ready
For things to take that turn.
I refused it out of anger
At knowing that she knew
That she couldn’t do it. And it wasn’t her fault.
And I didn’t blame her.
I didn’t blame her for the excitement, either.
Everyone can love affection,
But I expected more from her
Than to try to excite me in return.
I'd always thought that,
In knowing we would always just be like this,
We were always something more.
But the next time that I saw her,
Her eyes were wide and terrified,
And they looked right through me. They always had.
I was just aware of it now.
And she cleared her throat,
And her hands lined her pockets,
And I watched the sidewalk ants
And my fingers knotted with my belt loops
And I knew that we were strangers again.